No Gun Intended by Zoe Burke Page B

him.”
    Luis rested his hand on Greta’s, which was furiously rubbing at a spot. “We are very sorry about your loss. We do not mean to distress you in any way. Can you tell us, though, if Hank ever talked about someone named Claudia?”
    She stared at him. “Huh? No.” She backed up, away from the bar. “Hank wasn’t all bad. He had drug problems back East. He was trying to go straight. We were talking about getting back together…What’s this all about, with this Claudia chick?”
    â€œShe was mugged. There was a mix-up with a gun, it ended up with me by mistake…”
    Mickey interrupted me. “Just one more question. Do you know a Wesley Young or Loren Scranton?”
    Greta shook her head. “No. Look, I have to clean up here. You guys want anything else?”
    â€œNo. Thanks, Greta. We’re sorry, really.” I pulled out one of my business cards and tossed it on the bar. “We’ll be in town for a few more days, in case you think of anything that might help us.”
    â€œSure thing. “ She didn’t look at us.
    Mickey dropped some cash for Greta, and we stood to go. I glanced over my shoulder as we were leaving to see her talking on her cell phone. It looked like she was reading my card to someone on the other end.

Chapter Sixteen
    Mickey drove us home, with the help of my phone’s GPS. There are about a half dozen bridges in Portland, linking the east and west sides of the Willamette River, and out-of-towners like us needed directions.
    â€œRemember when we used fold-up maps?” I was watching us, the blue dot on my screen, move across the Burnside Bridge. “I could never refold them right.”
    â€œDamn it.” Mickey got to the other side of the bridge and slowed down.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œPolice. Behind us. Pulling me over.”
    Luis and I turned around to see the blinking lights of a police car. “AGAIN? What the…?”
    â€œSsshh, amiga . Stay cool.”
    â€œHow many beers did you have, Mickey?”
    â€œTwo. I’m fine.” He got us across the bridge, pulled over, and put the car in park. We waited for the cop to approach, and Mickey rolled down his window. “What’s the problem, Officer?”
    â€œLicense and registration, please.”
    I dug the registration out of the glove compartment while Mickey dug in his wallet for his license. The policeman shined his flashlight in the car at all of us. I handed the registration to Mickey, and he passed it along to the cop with his license.
    â€œMr. Paxton?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAre you aware that you were driving erratically back there?”
    â€œNo, I wasn’t aware of that.”
    â€œHave you been drinking?”
    â€œTwo beers in two hours.”
    â€œWould you get out of the car, please?”
    Mickey paused, patted my knee, and got out. I turned to Luis. “What the fuck, Luis?”
    He held his finger to his lips to shush me again, then rolled down his window so that we could hear better what was going on.
    The policeman asked why Mickey was driving a car registered to Jeffrey Starkey, and then put him through the drunk driving test moves: following the officer’s pen with his eyes, standing on one leg, walking in a straight line heel to toe. Mickey did just fine. The cop handed the documents back to him and said, “Drive carefully.”
    â€œCan you tell me what I did wrong?”
    â€œStarted to make a turn a couple of times, and then didn’t.”
    â€œI’m visiting Portland. I wasn’t sure which way to go.”
    â€œSorry for the bother, Mr. Paxton. You and Beatrice have a good night.”
    Mickey froze. I knew because he had started to get into the car, but his hand stopped on the door handle. He let go and turned to face the policeman. “Beatrice? You know that’s her name because…?”
    The cop took a moment before answering. “The